Until Iker got accustomed to the harsh overhead lights and the hold Monica had on him, he was essentially blind. The vast space in all directions of the arak spaceship's hangar, earlier all covered by visual ripples of light, now registered properly in Iker's eyes. Twice the size of a soccer stadium, the hangar's immensity was not surprising even though previously the spaceship only looked like a looming and shadowy triangle while levitating from beneath it. The gunmetal quarried and metal materials that made up the hangar was indeed something alien, while the way it was designed did not seem alien at all as the ceiling, the walls, and the floor were impeccably flat, including the sealed gates beneath Iker's feet.

  Past the ranks of levitating araks surrounding Iker, Monica, the mysterious black lambda, and Iggy, it was difficult to examine the extraterrestrial crates and the arak spacecraft behind them. The ranked araks had no formal uniform, but they all had their assortment of diverse loot, including the various kinds of guns and swords they either had pointed at the humans or had left sheathed.

  "Narrator?" Iker asked Wexil.

  "Don't play stupid with me," Wexil answered, pointing a tentacle at the teenager. "You know damn well what I'm talking about."

  Except for the use of damn, Wexil had a convincing human accent. Arak accents did not have a human accent comparison. It could only be described as having a ghastly, metallic, and static sound. If a human tried their hardest to imagine airless sound, or powerful sounds that could skip air altogether to travel, a human would imagine what they would hear from an arak speaking a human language. It could be telepathic, but it would be telepathic with the convincing illusion of it not being telepathic at all.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Iker shrugged, causing Monica to shove him and to tighten her grip. "Whatever bro."

  Wexil dropped his pointing limb and rotated slightly to gaze at Monica. "Have you gotten the instructions Monica?"

  "Yes, I can't jaunt," Monica said. "The only reason I am still here is because I did not do so when I got to the ship."

  "How long ago did you get to the lambda?" Wexil asked.

  "Memory wise... it seems like it was a few minutes ago," Monica replied.

  "Well, your body was inside the lambda with this boy for several hours by now," Wexil said. "We need to figure out if that consciousness from a few hours ago is the same consciousness you possess now."

  Iker, being in close proximity to Iggy, knew the answer, but he had to focus on not thinking about it. An arak, or multiple araks, could be reading his mind right now.

  "The little human knows the answer!" one of the arak colonizers yelled while having an extremely thick and staticky accent. "He seems to have anti-esper training. He is meditating and thinking of his breathing."

  "It's healthy for humans to do that. Perhaps we shouldn't interrupt my jefe."

  Araks had a very particular way to express shock, and in unison their fan-shaped torsos fanned out further while their hind tentacles and spider-like legs spread more apart too as they heard the androgynous arak voice speaking fluent English.

  And a bit of Spanglish.

  With perhaps a lot of practice from previous loops, a beautiful circle of crates casted a shadow over the crowd made up of a few species. Iker and Monica looked up at the same time to find the floating crates were long gone. Instead, they landed perfectly on all the ranks of araks, Wexil and a familiar arak friend dodging them by entering the perimeter of the floor gates.

  "Uzi!" Iker yelled at Uzi, vis bubble-wrap looking eyes bringing relief.

  And without hesitation, Monica knocked Iker unconscious.